Insight Abridged
by margotsmissingfinger
Summary: It seems to me that romance has less to do with satisfaction than with longing.
1. Chapter 1

Darcy could feel Elizabeth's breath, so close was she as she delivered a sharp and bitter epitaph on his hopes of becoming her husband. His defenses loomed stormily. It would take an endless and tortured white night before he would admit to himself how deeply her blows had landed. Awash in confusion and denial, he found himself detached, transfixed by that breath washing over his skin, enthralled by the rare manifestation of a decorous young woman enflamed and provoked to battle. The allure of her ferocity was bewildering and the only reason intact enough to prevail against his closing the scant distance to capture her lips was invoked by the painful memory of Georgiana's grief and unwarranted shame.

Lizzy's emotions careened wildly, but the satisfaction of freely expressing her long-withheld rancor was unspeakably intoxicating. Her blood rushing, she felt near giddy in her liberation, which mingled bizarrely with her rage. Heady from flouting ten thousand a year, she saw him as never before, as he was, after all merely a man. As if to assert her equality in stature, she stood boldly close, rising against his disparagement.

Darcy fought for composure, self-awareness washing over him again, lapsing through pride, scorn, wonder, lust, before finally settling on remorse. Lizzy watched the flickering transition of emotions, held too aloof by victory to know or care if she read them rightly. She wouldn't realize until the small hours of the morning just how close they'd come to kissing, a troublesome thought, which refused to be banished.

At last he uttered, "Forgive me for taking up so much of your time."

Words that would echo unceasingly, words whose apparent bitterness would later exposed the grief that they endeavored to conceal. 

* * *

><p>Lizzy'd made a strong go of rallying her spirits in the months that lapsed. Jane was more cautious these days, but Mr. Bingley remained steadfast in his attentions, determined to make his amends completely. It was a comfort to observe them in action, but lingering judiciously behind in the lane left her at the mercy of a certain set of memories, which gave her no pleasure at all. This meant something. Big or small, she could not know, but the result was plain. Three weeks of marked attention in town and Bingley had returned to Hertfordshire faithfully at Jane's heel. Something in the universe had been set right.<p>

Unanswerable musing on the subject chased sleep away often enough that she was given to drowsing beneath a particular elm in their park. She wove her fingers in the spring hay and for an hour or two flagrantly disregarded the dangers of the afternoon sun. It felt good on her skin, temporarily banishing the plague of uncertainties flocking her and she drew strength from it after mornings spent trying to out walk her thoughts. It was a marvel that she could be so infatuated with a man she had determined to hate and was hardly ever likely to encounter again. Charlotte would have her laugh; what exactly had she said at that ball? That she would find him agreeable indeed? It seemed an eon ago and yet her life still spread out before her blankly. Her days had never seemed so idle as they did when hardly a minute was free from the earnest pursuit of driving Fitzwilliam Darcy from her thoughts. Absurdity, which she had formerly delighted in, now held her by the throat and she was keenly aware of it. 

* * *

><p>"Miss Bennett has many sisters."<p>

Georgiana's surprised declaration bared a vein of longing. Fitzwilliam openly winced; her unguarded sentiment lay too near to his own. She deserved a sister and needed a proper confidante. Setting Bingley's hurried dispatch aside his cup, he gathered his courage, "I doubt it will be many months before you will have cause to meet them, my dear." 

* * *

><p>She was hardly the first woman to reject a proposal by a man counting as scarcely more than an acquaintance. If she had done it twice, it was probably more common than general opinion held. <em>Your particulars, Lizzy Bennett<em>, she told herself sternly, _are hardly novel. What right have you to carry on like this?_ She applied herself with some success to a new order of philosophies and political journals in her father's study. She often felt his scrutiny landing heavily on her, but if anyone in Longbourn appreciated peace and respite, it was Mr. Bennett. 

"With lake country out of reach now, I hope you will not be too disappointed to be contained to Derbyshire, Lizzy."

Without hesitation or wavering the stream of hot tea from pot to china, she replied, "Not at all. I have been looking forward to it keenly, I assure you." 

* * *

><p>In the myriad scenarios her imagination had produced, the effect of sheer heart-stopping mortification had somehow been forgotten.<p>

"I fear my presence here—"

"Your presence here is very welcome, indeed, Miss Bennett. Will you do me the honor of introducing me to your friends?'

This drove her eyes straight to his in wonder and instinctively he leaned towards her. Proximity evoked a dizzying déjà vu, but this time the heightened colour spread over cheekbones was driven by a sudden hope that was answered in turn.


	2. Chapter 2

After many months, the impossible plucked her out of a grey misty limbo as sharply as if a frigid hand had grabbed her by the ankle and yanked her down to earth. So naturally, being unaccustomed to gravity's dominion over nature, as she turned to collect her relations to make the introduction, she staggered, finding the earth set at a different angle than when she last left it.

Mr. Darcy sprang into action, catching her by the elbow and then waist, uncertain if she had merely stumbled or was fully unable to support herself. She'd gone from flushed to pale so quickly that he wondered if he dared believe he'd seen her blush at all, let alone cherish it as evidence in his favor.

'Miss Bennett!'

This was becoming a real exercise in humiliation, thought Elizabeth as she struggled to regain composure and some semblance of control over the situation.

'How clumsy of me.' She laughed breathlessly at herself, in part to defuse his embarrassment at the impropriety by redirecting the blame, in part to stem near-hysteria. _Throw them in the way of other rich m_—an insupportable thought, _steady, Lizzy_.

'I would do well to remind you that I'm quite proficient on the dance floor.' And before she could even flinch with regret over her choice of the word _proficient—_heaven help her—his grasp tightened and then abruptly she was released.

Except he still seemed to have a hold on her lungs as her breath came quite shallow.

'Are you well? You must come in and rest. I'll ring for tea—or send for the apothecary.' As he found his voice again, his thoughts tumbled forth like children trying to fit out a door all at once.

Every nerve within her sang with pleasure at his inability to conceal his concern, which fairly galloped towards panic. _The violence of his affections, indeed_, rose unbidden in her mind. The wickedness of the comparison—_or of the_ _contrast_? Wickeder still—shocked her, but she needed her humor and verve more than ever to give her the strength to carry this interlude forward to terra firma before further faux pas could strike.

'Thank you, Mr. Darcy, I am well, I assure you. Only justly mortified.'

She smiled at him; seeking to reassure them both, yet pale to tread over the past although she must to find footing to begin making her amends. She looked so strikingly vulnerable as her eyes searched his that he'd begun to reach for her hands without thought. Instead he smiled in return, still more determined to earn her confidence than he had been when he risked the dissolution of his friendship with Bingley to right the charges she'd laid at his feet.

Here Mrs. Gardiner chose her moment prudently and both parties found the necessary social niceties held them steady. Gauging her color safely improved, Mr. Darcy lost no time in making his many improvements known. Elizabeth regarded the park with fresh wonder, as if the very light of the sun had in some curious way altered all things it touched.


End file.
